While I am not a George Brett collector, I do admire his body of work.

Brett was a solid, all-around offensive machine for the Kansas City Royals.  His ability to hit for average, and mix in a little power as well, made him a constant threat and perennial All-star.

Check out these four beauties…

That Rod Carew & George Brett card is classic!!  It may be one of my favorite multi-player cards of all-time!!

 Overland Park, KS (Evans Media Group) – November 13, 2009 …  George Brett fields donuts and coffee for  a great cause at Grand Opening yesterday.

 George Brett’s 3,154 career hits may be the most by any third baseman in major league history, but his drive-thru performance may actually over shadow his famous hit record. Brett did admit that he “messed up a few orders” at the drive-thru window at the grand opening of the Dunkin Donuts today at 7722 W. 151^st Street in Overland Park yesterday … but nobody complained. Fans of baseball and Dunkin Donuts alike lined up dozens-deep to get a glimpse of the former Kansas City Royals legend and sample what is arguably the best tasting coffee available.

 The social media networks had been abuzz with activity in the weeks and months preceding the opening with tweets and Facebook updates increasing in frequency as the event drew near and reaching a fever pitch the morning of. Flat boxes of Dunkin Dozens and gallons of the tasty brew were served by Brett and others starting at around 5:00 a.m. this morning with a portion of the proceeds going to support Harvesters, The Community Food Network who were also at the scheduled 9:00 a.m. grand opening event. Kansas City’s Rock and Roll radio station, 98.9 The Rock was on hand doing a live remote, drumming up even more attention from listeners and passers by.

 The ribbon cutting ceremony was attended by Harvesters President and CEO Karen Haren and City Council President Fred Spears , along with other city officials and dignitaries from all levels of government, along with George Brett who watched new owners Jennifer Benjamin and Kristen Rhyne McClure of Verona Key slice the actual ribbon and then present a check for $2,000.00 to the Community Food Network. This amount will feed 10,000 people and was met by raucous cheers and applause from the gathering of fans and onlookers.

 Dunkin Donuts, a staple on the east coast, with millions of dedicated, die-hard customers makes its debut into the Kansas City market with this first location but Benjamin and McClure plan on their franchise group, Verona Key opening another fifteen locations in the KC Metro area within the next few years. A hearty welcome from us at Evans Media Group … I’ll take mine “Light ‘n Sweet”.

Compare Graig Nettles to the other third basemen in the Hall of Fame and you quickly see that he belongs with them.

Nettles led all third basemen but one in games played at third, assists and double plays. The one guy ahead of him? Brooks Robinson. Nettles couldn’t start winning Gold Gloves until Robinson retired (even though he passed him up defensively a few years earlier), so he only won two Gold Gloves. But if you’re on a short list at third base with Brooks Robinson, you certainly deserve consideration.

How about offensively? Does Nettles stack up to Hall of Famers there? Ten players made the Hall of Fame primarily as third basemen: Frank Baker, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Jimmy Collins, George Kell, Freddie Lindstrom, Eddie Mathews, Robinson, Mike Schmidt and Pie Traynor.

Only Schmidt and Mathews hit more homers than Nettles and they were the only other third basemen in the Hall of Fame who led their leagues in homers (Nettles did it in 1976). Only Schmidt, Mathews, Robinson and Brett drove in more runs.

Think about that: Defensively and in two of the three Triple Crown offensive categories, Nettles was better than more than half of the third basemen in the Hall of Fame.

I think you weaken your argument for the Hall of Fame when you start comparing a player to the marginal Hall of Famers. But when you start comparisons and you keep lumping a player with guys like Robinson, Brett, Schmidt and Mathews, and ahead of most of the other guys at his position in the Hall of Fame, he’s a Hall of Famer.

In one of the Triple Crown categories, batting average, Nettles was worse than all the Hall of Fame third basemen, hitting only .248. But he walked a lot and his on-base percentage, .329, was actually higher than Robinson’s. And he had more career hits and walks (not just combined, more in both categories) than four third basemen in the Hall of Fame: Baker, Collins, Kell and Lindstrom.

Nettles was a six-time All-Star, a two-time World Series champion (1977-78) and a League Championship Series Most Valuable Player. He turned in one of the most amazing defensive performances in World Series history.

In my posts about why Don Mattingly and Ron Guidry, I noted that longevity and being Yankees were the only reasons they weren’t slam-dunk Hall of Famers. But Nettles played long enough to be a leader at his position in nearly every offensive and defensive category.

So there’s only one reason he isn’t in the Hall of Fame: He was a Yankee.

Player A and Player B were as alike as any two great players in baseball history. I defy you to find two with more identical careers.

Player A played 12 full seasons in the major leagues, Player B played parts of 14 seasons, but one was a late cup-of-coffee call-up and he came up to stay partway through the next season. Another season was shortened by injury. They ended up playing nearly an identical number of games, 1,783 and 1,785. Their at-bats were pretty close, too, 7,003 to 7,244. 

Their careers overlapped almost entirely, retiring in the same season, so you don’t need any adjustments to compare performance from different eras. They played in the same league and were universally regarded as two of the best players in the league for most of their careers. Each of them played his entire career for one team and each played in a park that mostly helped his hitting.

I defy you to find two great players whose career achievements were closer to identical. Let’s examine the measurable ways that baseball judges great players:

Getting hits: Player A hit .318 for his career, eight seasons over .300, high of .356, one batting championship, 2,304 hits, five 200-hit seasons, high of 234, led league in hits four times. Player B hit .307 for his career, seven seasons over .300, high of .352, one batting championship, 2,153 hits, three 200-hit seasons, high of 238, led league in hits twice. Nearly identical hitters, without question two of the best of their time. Player A a shade behind in getting hits.

Hitting for power. Player A hit 207 homers, high of 31 in his only season over 30, five other seasons with more than 20 homers, slugged .477, 414 doubles with three seasons over 40 and a high of 45. Player B hit 222 homers with three seasons over 30, a high of 35 and two more seasons over 20, slugged .471, 442 doubles, four seasons over 40 doubles with a high of 53. Player A never led the league in a power category, but Player B led three times in doubles and once in slugging. Again, nearly identical, but this time a slight edge for Player B.

Run production. Player A scored 1,071 runs with two seasons over 100 runs scored, high of 119, drove in 1,085 runs, with three 100-RBI seasons, high of 121, and led the league once in RBI. Player B scored 1,007 runs with two seasons over 100 runs, high of 117, drove in 1,099 runs, with five 100-RBI seaons, high of 145, and led the league in RBI once. I defy you to find two great players whose run production was closer to identical. No edge here.

Defense. Neither played catcher, shortstop or second base, the key defensive positions where defense has sometimes been valued more than offense. Both played positions where the best players typically are offensive leaders. Player A won six Gold Gloves. Player B won nine Gold Gloves, second most ever at his position. However, Player A’s defensive position is generally regarded as more difficulut and more important. So defensive value is really close, too.

Those are pretty much the criteria on which position players make the Baseball Hall of Fame or not. You might think that stolen bases matter to Cooperstown, but if that were true, Tim Raines, Willie Wilson and Maury Wills would be in the Hall of Fame. Other great base stealers in the Hall of Fame – Ty Cobb, Rickey Henderson, Lou Brock, Joe Morgan – were great enough at hitting and scoring runs that they were locks based on the criteria above. You could argue that base-stealing got Luis Aparicio into the Hall of Fame, but he also was regarded by many as the best defensive shortstop until Ozzie Smith came along.

For what it’s worth, though, speed would not be part of either of these players’ Hall of Fame credentials. Player A had the clear advantage, particularly early in his career, with two 20-steal seasons (high of 21) and 134 steals for his career, along with 57 triples and one year with 13. However, he was caught stealing 76 times, a dozen in each of his 20-steal seasons, so his percentage was not good. Player B was slow, 14 career steals, 20 career triples. Big advantage for Player A, but irrelevant for Hall of Fame consideration.

Some other statistics gaining more importance in some circles now underscore how similar the players were:

On-base percentage. Neither player drew a lot of walks. But here Player B had the advantage, with 588 for his career and a season high of 61, pushing his on-base percentage to .358. Player A walked 450 times, high of 57, OBP of .360, just two percentage points apart.

OPS. During their careers, no one paid attention to OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging), but those numbers were nearly identical, too, .837 career for Player A, .830 for Player B. They each had four seasons over .900, and Player had the best season, .967, to .920 for Player A. again, we’re talking a hair’s difference and arguable whose side the hair favors.

Strikeouts. OK, not striking out isn’t going to get anyone into the Hall of Fame by itself. But Player B was one of the best of his era at making contact, striking out only 444 times, never more than 43 times in a season. Player A struck out more than twice as many times, 965, with a high of 99 in a season.

We have examined seven categories of offensive performance. In five, their production was nearly identical. Each had a significant advantage in one category of less importance. And they were both defensive standouts. Now let’s look at honors: Player B won an MVP Award (and nearly got a second one). But Player A made more All-Star teams (10 to 6) and was an All-Star MVP.

We’ll get into some intangibles and post-season play shortly. But the summary here is obvious. Each of these players had a Hall of Fame prime but didn’t play long enough to achieve the milestones like 3,000 hits that ensure Hall of Fame election. They were great hitters for average, great run producers, good power hitters, great defensive players. Automatic Hall of Famers if they had more longevity but worthy of serious consideration based on their stellar primes and how long they did play.

But Kirby Puckett, Player A, was voted into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, and Don Mattingly, Player B, has been on the ballot nine years, never winning as much as 29 percent of the vote. He was down to 12 percent this year.

Let’s acknowledge the only big advantage Puckett has: two World Series championships, including a classic homer-saving catch and a memorable extra-inning game-winning homer. Mattingly never made a World Series but hit .417 with a homer, four doubles and six RBI in his only post-season series. And, by the way, Mattingly is the only Yankee who belongs in the Hall of Fame but isn’t there who doesn’t have post-season performance in his favor. You can’t use that to argue for Puckett if it doesn’t count for Allie Reynolds, Ron Guidry, Thurman Munson, etc.

Major league records count for something and Mattingly still shares two major league records, hitting six grand-slam homers in a season and hitting homers in eight consecutive games. They’re not as big as career or single-season records, but they underscore that he was a special player.

Statistically, here’s how close to identical they were: In comparing the nine hitting production statistics cited above (batting, on-base and slugging averages, OPS, hits, runs, RBI, homers, doubles), the biggest gap in their career numbers was Mattingly’s advantage of 7.25 percent for homers. Puckett had the advantage in five and Mattingly in four (but Mattingly’s advantages were a shade wider). In four categories, their career stats varied by less than 2 percent. In games, they varied by only 11 hundredths of 1 percent and in at-bats by less than 3 percent, so the context of their production was virtually identical.

In peak numbers, they aren’t quite as close, but the advantage goes to Mattingly. He had the best career high in seven of the nine production categories. And in three cases – homers, doubles and RBI – Mattingly’s advantage was more than 10 percent.

Both players were respected throughout their careers for their class and for the enthusiasm and determination with which they played. Their careers were ending just as the steroid era exploded and no one has suggested either cheated or abused recreational drugs. The only scandal for either was a domestic-violence case against Puckett after he was elected to the Hall of Fame.

Let’s throw a third contemporary into the mix: George Brett, whom Mattingly barely beat out for MVP in 1985. He started his career earlier than Mattingly and Puckett and retired two years earlier, so he overlapped them for half of his career. Brett’s a no-doubt Hall of Famer who played long enough to reach 3,000 hits, making him an automatic selection. He played in a huge park that invited high batting averages and lots of doubles but gave up fewer homers.

Like Mattingly and Puckett, Brett was a high-average hitter with good but not great power. His career average was a couple points lower than Mattingly’s, but his OBP (9 points higher) and slugging (16 points higher) were a bit better. While his career totals were way better than Mattingly’s, his peak numbers were comparable. The incredible .390 average was way better than Mattingly’s best, but Mattingly’s best RBI total was 28 higher than Brett’s. And Mattingly , even with a shorter career, had one more 100-RBI season and two more 200-hit seasons. Brett’s high for homers was 30, five less than Mattingly. Brett had two more 100-run seasons but never matched the 53 doubles that Mattingly achieved.

The point is: Peak vs. peak, Mattingly holds up against Brett. On career averages, they were comparable. Only longevity separates them. But not even longevity separates Mattingly and Puckett.  

In the Pinstripe Alley blog, a fan named Travis G. compares Mattingly favorably to Jim Rice, who just made the Hall of Fame and I agree with that comparison: Rice is a worthy Hall of Famer but Mattingly was better. I won’t elaborate on those differences, though, because I have a simple rule in my Hall of Fame arguments: Don’t compare a player with the borderline Hall of Famers. That’s a losing argument because too many question whether that person belongs. I don’t argue for lowering the Hall of Fame threshold to let Mattingly in. I agree that Kirby Puckett is a no-question Hall of Famer. And I just proved that Mattingly is every bit Puckett’s equal. Puckett was easily far above the threshold and so was Mattingly.

The dramatic difference in their Hall of Fame voting can be explained by four fairly consistent factors in Hall of Fame voting:

• Hall of Fame voters have an anti-Yankee bias that is consistent and undeniable. Every borderline Yankee is either denied entry or has to wait far longer than comparable players. (Goose Gossage was closely clumped with Bruce Sutter and Rollie Fingers as the most dominant relievers of their era; remember who had to wait the longest for Cooperstown?) And even some Yankees who aren’t close to borderline have to wait.
• Hall of Fame voters have a consistent and undeniable bias for longevity. A pretty good player who hangs around long enough to make some milestones will get an invite to Cooperstown before a greater player who didn’t hang around as long.
• Hall of Fame voters make exceptions for the longevity rule if your career is shortened by illness, but not if the wear-and-tear injuries of baseball shorten your career. Puckett’s career was cut short by glaucoma, an illness unrelated to baseball. Mattingly’s career was cut short by a back injury, wear and tear.
• Hall of Fame voters are generally clueless and wildly inconsistent.

If you can look at the comparisons cited here and find a difference that makes one a first-ballot Hall of Famer and one not even close after almost a decade on the ballot, I’d like to hear your argument. I bet it’s lame.

On this day in 1992, George Brett collected hit number 3,000 of his amazing baseball career!!!

On the road playing the Angels, Brett’s Kansas City Royals teammates were playing in front of 17,000+ fans.  If the baseball fans in the Los Angeles area knew that history was going to be made on this day, I would have to imagine that more people would have been in attendance.

For the day, Brett put on quite a display of hitting excellence.  Going 4-for-5, he hit 1 double and 3 singles.

George Brett finished his Hall of Fame career with 3,154 hits and ranks as 15th in baseball history for career hits. 

Happy Anniversary Mr. Brett!!!

Former Kansas City Royals third baseman George Brett is one of only four individuals in baseball history to close a career with more than 3,000 hits, 300 home runs and a .300 batting average. And apparently, when it comes to crapping his pants, the Hall of Famer has put up far better numbers than any other player past or present — twice a year, he boasts. Here, George tells the tale of a crab feast that exploded in his trousers.

Ozzie Guillen vs. MLB umpire

I don’t know if anyone has ever experienced, witnessed, or even contributed to the pandemic of horrible officiating that has come upon or poor, beloved country. While fans continue to rip on players like Barry Bonds, Latrell Spreewell, or even Shoeless Joe Jackson, no one seems to say anything about the horrible officiating.

Yesterday, a blatant offense of a rule occurred when an opposing player DID NOT SLIDE and barreled into my catcher, launching my friend as the buy flipped into the backstop. At the time that the collision occurred, the ball was in the infield, on its way to the plate. While the runner scoring did not really matter as we were already losing by five runs with one inning left, the fact that the guy had taken out my catcher should have gotten him called out. I mean, what’s stopping me from going in hard on a close play at a base and just checking someone into the dirt? Or stepping on ankles as ai run through a base? Why did I waste my time at a captain’s meeting earlier in the year? What is my league fee paying for?

But I digress. We are focusing on bad officiating – you know, like Tim Donaghy – and it’s affect on sports. I wonder if the guys who become referees or umpires are the guys who get rejected from the police academy. You know, some guy who got beat up in high school, has no friends, so he feels that being in a “position of power” somewhere will make him feel better about himself (I am emphasizing that this is for BAD officials – there are some good ones out there and I don’t want to drag them through the mud).

If you don’t know the story about George Brett, well, you don’t watch enough SportsCenter. In a game against the Yankees in 1983, Brett hit a go-ahead home run for the Royals. Billy Martin, the manager for the Yankees, after getting called out by his catcher, claimed that there was too much pine tar on Brett’s bat and that the home run should not count. Well, then umpire Tim McClelland measured the pine tar on the bat and ruled it illegal, calling out Brett and ending the game, which led to this. 

After Brett flipped out, the Royals protested the game. Now, when you protest a game, you are essentially saying that the umpire “misinterpreted’ (read “is incompetent when understanding”) the rules. Eventually, the American League President ruled that an umpire could not call a player out but only throw the bat out of the game. They resumed play later in the season with the Royals ahead, and they held on to the victory. But the story doesn’t end there. Billy Martin then protested the game on the grounds that George Brett did not touch all of the bases when he hit his home run, banking on the fact that he had a new umpire crew and they could not confirm whether or not Brett touch the bases months ago. Unfortunately for Martin, the new umpire crew was ready for this and they had signed affidavits from the other crew saying that Brett touched all the bases. New crew 1, Martin 0.

Now, another baseball event that was ridiculous came in favor, for the Yankees, during the playoffs. In Game 2 of the 1996 ALCS between the Yankees and the Orioles, Derek Jeter hit a home run to right center to give the Yankees the lead. Albert Belle, the right fielder, was mad about it. Probably because the ball was a shot that would have hit off the wall if not been caught by Belle, if it wasn’t caught by Jeffrey Maier first and brought over the wall for a home run. Those sneaky Yankees fans! Either way, the umpires ruled it a home run, despite Belle’s protests. I guess this is why MLB allows instant replay on home runs. Welcome to the 20^th, MLB! Now, all we have to do is get to the 21^st century, and our National Pastime might be caught up!

Now, this brings me back to the bad call that was made. While it may not have incited a Red Sox-Yankees type brawl, the guys should have been called out. When I came into the dugout after the inning was over, the ump made it a point to let me know that, in his opinion, there was no play at the plate. Gee, thanks for that re-assurance. Don’t worry, I was cursing you out (literally) from centerfield, but you telling me that, in your opinion, there was no play at the plate. I apologize, sir, for questioning your judgment! While I’m eating my piece of humble pie, let’s call down the big man from upstairs so he can just bask in your glory!

This guy definitely belongs here. I wish Tommy Lasorda was my manager so he could have protected me from this fanatic!

(Above: U2 encourage America to “Walk On” in a live appearance broadcast less than two weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks.)

By Joel Francis

U2’s “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” had been out for nearly a year the morning two planes slammed into the World Trade Center, another collided with the Pentagon and a fourth flight was forced into the Pennsylvania farmland.

Following the trend of “The Joshua Tree” the first three songs were released to huge acclaim as singles. It was the fourth cut, though, that found the greatest resonance. By the time “Walk On” came out in November, 2001, the song had become an unofficial anthem of hope.

When the quartet performed the song live on the “America: A Tribute to Heroes” special just 10 days after the attacks it was prefaced with the first verse of “Peace On Earth.” Written about an Irish terrorism attack, the lyrics were poignant: “Heaven on Earth, we need it now.”

The words that didn’t make the broadcast, but ended most concerts on U2’s then-current tour were just as affecting. As pictures of missing loved ones were plastered on every available surface in New York City, and the names of the departed rolled up the video boards in arenas each night, Bono sang “They’re reading names out on the radio/All the folks the rest of us won’t get to know.”

I had only been to New York City briefly at that point. On our way to Cooperstown, N.Y., to watch my childhood hero George Brett get inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999, my dad and I saw Kansas City,Mo.-native David Cone make his first start in Yankee Stadium after throwing a perfect game. He got shelled and after driving in that afternoon for the game we slept at a hotel in New Jersey.

At that time, I didn’t know Battery Park from Battery Island. But listening to Bono sing “New York,” I felt like an honorary citizen. Songs like “When I Look at the World” and “Grace” spoke to my feelings of grief and confusion. Several months later, when Bruce Springsteen released “The Rising” my soundtrack was expanded. That album ended with “My City of Ruins,” the most poignant performance on the “Tribute to Heroes” telecast. As the first anniversary of the attacks rolled around, “Into the Fire” and “You’re Missing” helped quell all the resurfaced sentiment.

If the Big Apple was largely unknown to me, the Middle East was a greater enigma. The only images I had of the region and its inhabitants were those pumped over the news. Surely that wasn’t right. Not all of these people were monsters. They were regular Joes and Janes like you and me, trying to do whatever it was they did to make ends meet and survive, right?

“Passion,” Peter Gabriel’s 1989 soundtrack to the uber-controversial film “The Last Temptation of Christ,” was filled with music from the Middle East and Africa meant to evoke the time of Christ. The instrumental album was my way of relating to the people of Afghanistan and the region that gave birth to al Qaeda and the Taliban.

These albums were my balms in 2001 and 2002. Starting the album when I backed out of the driveway, it took me exactly four cuts off “The Rising” to reach the first anniversary 9/11 memorial service in downtown Kansas City. For more than an hour, Christians, Jews and Muslims celebrated and mourned together. We weren’t three sects, we were one collective.

And then it all seemed to evaporate. The services and events of Sept. 11, 2003 weren’t quite as elaborate. Within a couple years it seemed the only experience available away from the crash sites was a prayer breakfast or moment of silence. In 2007, the day was marked by rapper 50 Cent’s boast that he would sell more copies of his new album than Kanye West. He didn’t.

I have no problem with an open marketplace on national holidays. Johnny Cash’s final album, “American V: A Hundred Highways,” came out on July 4, 2006. I can think of no artist better suited to that day, but his record was merely a window-dressing to the occasion. Heck, I made time on Sept. 11, 2001, to pick up Bob Dylan’s new release, “Love and Theft.”

I take issue, however, when ephemera overshadow history. No one cared about 50’s album. All of its singles had vanished from the charts by Thanksgiving, yet the competition he invented to sell more records eclipsed the anniversary. This year the other artist to release a masterpiece on Sept. 11, 2001, Jay-Z, was going to put out the third installment in his “Blueprint” series on Sept. 11. (Because the album leaked the date was pushed up to Sept. 8.)

A proud New Yorker, Jay-Z appeared at the Concert for New York benefit in October, 2001, and is donating all profits from his Sept. 11, 2009, concert at Madison Square Garden to the New York Police and Fire Widows’ and Children’s Benefit Fund. If anyone gets Sept. 11, it’s Jay-Z, yet on his new album, he reduced the events to a crude metaphor for his prowess:

“I was gonna 9/11 them but they didn’t need the help
and they did a good job, them boys is talented as hell,
so not only did they brick but they put a building up as well
then ran a plane into that building and when that building fell
ran to the crash site with no mask and inhaled, toxins deep inside they lungs”

A friend recently reminded me that American culture doesn’t handle history very well. It can market the hell out of nostalgia, but history is another matter. Dec. 7, 1941, the Day of Infamy, has been reduced to a scratchy FDR soundbite. Memorial Day is for mattress sales. On top of that, the events of Sept. 11 are awkwardly unresolved. Victory has been declared, but not achieved. Were it to happen, no one in America or the Middle East has any idea what it would look like. There are no holidays, my friend said, marking the Tet Offensive or the charge at San Juan Hill. Additionally, Sept. 11 has become so politicized any organized event tied to the day is instantly and cynically scrutinized.

If record sales and a proposed day of community service aren’t the answers, perhaps the best solution is subtle one that’s somehow gone underground and survived: prayer. After all the speechifying, 8:46 and 9:03 a.m., EST, are always observed with a moment of silence. Each Sept. 11, take a moment to converse with whatever Supreme Being you believe in. Spill your guts, pause and listen for twice as long as you spoke. It might not change the world, but it could change your day.

So, it is far too often that news involving the New York Yankees is blown way out of proportion.  A clubhouse tiff becomes fodder for pundits nationwide, a decent starting pitcher gets higher name recognition than a better pitcher on 75% of the other MLB rosters, or a promising prospect is incessantly hyped as “The Next Big Thing”.

It’s all so ponderous and predictable that it can sometimes be easy to tune out when there is news out of the Bronx that is worthy of our attention.

And, Derek Jeter’s pursuit of the Yankees all-time hits record is just that. 

Derek Jeter

Now, I’m not about to deify Jeter – he’s a great shortstop who rose to prominence in an era of great shortstops, many of whom (Miguel Tejada and current teammate Alex Rodriguez, for example) have been exposed as partial frauds, at best.  We hold our breath on Jeter, and hope that he never ends up on a positive test list.

But making the relatively safe assumption that he is clean, establishing an all-time record for a franchise as storied as the Yankees simply must be recognized. 

Jeter is three hits shy of tying Lou Gehrig’s franchise record of 2,721, although he missed a chance to make up some of that ground in yesterday’s doubleheader with the Tampa Bay Rays.  Even while pulling an 0-8, his first back-to-back hitless games in almost two months, Jeter remains a candidate to catch fire at any moment and end the anticipation that has put all eyes on the captain of the club with the best record in baseball.

MLB.com provides some great perspective on the milestone with statistical analysis of the Yankees’ hitting history to go along with a chart of the all-time team-by-team hit leaders.  Those numbers, through games of September 6th, look like this:
 
Tigers – Ty Cobb 3,900
Cardinals – Stan Musial 3,630
Braves – Hank Aaron 3,600
Red Sox – Carl Yastrzemski 3,419
Reds  – Pete Rose 3,358
Giants  – Willie Mays 3,187
Orioles – Cal Ripken Jr. 3,184
Royals – George Brett 3,154
Brewers/Pilots – Robin Yount 3,142
Padres – Tony Gwynn 3,141
Astros – Craig Biggio 3,060
Pirates – Roberto Clemente 3,000
Cubs – Cap Anson 2,995
Twins/Senators – Sam Rice 2,889
Dodgers – Zack Wheat 2,804
White Sox – Luke Appling 2,749
Yankees – Lou Gehrig 2,721
Angels – Garret Anderson 2,368
Mariners – Edgar Martinez 2,247
Phillies – Mike Schmidt 2,234
Rockies – Todd Helton 2,110
Indians – Napoleon Lajoie 2,046
Athletics – Bert Campaneris 1,882
Rangers/Senators – Ivan Rodriguez 1,734
Nationals/Expos – Tim Wallach 1,694
Blue Jays – Tony Fernandez 1,583
Mets – Ed Kranepool 1,418
Diamondbacks – Luis Gonzalez 1,337
Marlins – Luis Castillo 1,273
Rays – Carl Crawford 1,270

Note that these are not representative of total hits by player by career, but rather those that came while wearing the uniform of the franchise in question.

And while it is surprising, though not shocking, to note that no player in Yankee history has managed 3,000 hits during his Yankee tenure, it is rather hard to believe that not one of the 27 players who eventually reached 3,000 hits during their careers started out in the Yankee organization. 

Jeter is not leaving the Yankees for the foreseeable future and at his age (35), one would have to believe that he will end that streak as he is likely to reach the vaunted number sometime early in the 2011 season.

Appreciate him for what he is – a steady performer at one of the toughest positions on the diamond who has shined brightly in the glare of constant attention.  Four-time World Series Champion has a nice ring to it too.

And for a little perspective on the degree of difficulty of “making it” in New York, New York, just take a look back at that list and note that Ed Kranepool, the all-time hits leader during the nearly 50-year history of the crosstown Mets, sits at a number not even halfway to the magical 3,000.  And that’s why they are once and forever the Amazin’ Mets. 

As for Jeter and the Yankees, hold your nose a little if you must as you absorb the media’s obsession with all things Yankees.  But don’t let it detract from another huge accomplishment in a fantastic, Hall-of-Fame career.

This follows the fine tradition of Royals players not only playing like crap, but…well, you see where we’re going with this.

Royals BaseBowel: True. Brown. Tradition.

baseball player george brett apparently has a looser asshole than belladonna.

The rule on the use of pine tar in professional baseball is codified in 1.1o(c) but that apparently means nothing in professional minor league baseball. The rule states that the batters may apply pine tar only from the handle of the bat extending up for 18 inches.

The exact wording related to pine tar says:

The bat handle, for not more than 18 inches from its end, may be covered or treated with any material or substance to improve the grip.  Any such material or substance, which extends past the 18 inch limitation, shall cause the bat to be removed from the game.

NOTE: If the umpire discovers that the bat does not conform to (c) above until a time during or after which the bat has been used in play, it shall not be grounds for declaring the batter out, or ejected from the game.

When Isotope’s slugger Brett Harper came to bat in the 6th inning I noticed that his pine tar was way up on his bat.  I was sitting on the first row behind his dugout and it was clearly visible to me that the tar ran up past the brand mark. When he came up to bat again in the eighth I took some pictures.

Harper’s bat is clearly in violation of the rule.  First, the tar starts about 10-12 inches from the handle.  Second, it clearly surpasses the 18-inches because you can see the tar also covers the brand and even surpasses the brand mark.

I tried to bring it to the attention of the home plate umpire, and he seemed to even glance at Harper’s bat, but he ignored it.

A rule is a rule. The tar provides Harper no advantage for grip, unless he were to choke up 12 inches. Brett Harper’s pine tar is clearly meant to influence the ball hitting the bat.  That violates the rule and his bat should be removed and Brett should be ejected the next time at the plate.

This isn’t the first “Brett” to be involved in a pine-tar controversy. Just ask George Brett!

the moment my love for a certain Algerian was cemented.

Some old school cats in that game. Had no idea I was seeing THE Barry Bonds, back then. I was in fourth grade and was more interested in this older gal Peggy, than in seeing Craig Biggio, Glenn Davis, and Bill Doran eek out a win.

She was kind of a fan, and her older sister was a big fan and they were both really kind to me, and somehow I became interested in baseball. Thus beginning a 15 year affair.

I started playing that following year and got my hand eye coordination good enough to play in a few all star games as a teenager before the pressures of high school sucked the joy out of playing (and sometimes living).

For a long time I hated my father for putting so much pressure on me to be a good player, and I grew to hate him even more for trashing my collection of baseball cards as a kid.

Recently though I realized he might have done me a favor. I used to view those cards as a gateway to my youth. Seeing the old cards of Cal Ripken Jr. Bob Tewksbury, or Lance Blankenship still bring about memories of riding my bike to the card shop and plopping down some moulah for the chance at a Darryl Strawberry in Dodgers uniform…….

but now…… not quite the same…….

two strike years lost, and a huge steroids scandal has jaded me a bit.

Finding out about the ‘roids made me feel like James Spader character in Sex, Lies, and Videotape, when he finds out the girl he had on a pedestal fucked his college buddy behind his back.

Names came up and more names came up and everything jsut kind of made sense. All the talk about juiced balls, and all the on the field, bench clearing brawls were suddenly put into a different context.

But in a way i’m like so what? How many of us are on performance enhancing drugs? I’m sitting here writing this blog (and about to work on a short story) with the help of two gigantic, 16 ounce Red Bulls.

So what if it takes years off my life? I have to get this stuff done. And maybe that was the thinking during the Steroids Era. Getting it done, putting up stats and being as good as possible while you still have the chance, because when your career is over, its over, and no one thinks about you because there will always be another player to eclipse your statistics.

So in a way I get it, but still, it takes a little of the luster off the game I had held in such high esteem.

I guess aging does that to you. You get a different sort of perspective on things, and players become people, fucking up like everyone else but having it appear in headlines everywhere.

Players die, players retire, players go bankrupt and get divorced.

I finally learned to seperate what a player does on the field with the off the field stuff.

True Lenny Dykstra had one of the most phenomenal post season runs I’ve ever seen (and should’ve won the ‘93 MVP in my opinion), but does that make him a decent human being?

Even if there weren’t the scandals and the strike stuff, it seems inevitable that I’d outgrow the sport. The last world series I watched with any interest was the last one with the Yankees, in 2003 when they lost to the Florida Marlins.

Even back then my interest was waning. A friend of mine once remarked that baseball was too slow for him, and boring, and I told him I liked the pace of the game, that I found it relaxing.

But that changed. Maybe my life got more complicated and the pace of basketball and international soccer resonated more with me, or maybe baseball really did become boring.

I just noticed that going to the game and sitting still for three hours became harder and harder. Unless I went with a friend, I found myself falling asleep in my chairs, a bit too relaxed by the near silence of crowds, smell of chalk, grass, and roasted weiners and peanuts.

The days of visiting cities just to watch a game in their ballparks are over. Tickets are too expensive and I don’t know any of the players out there anymore.

New and exciting NBA players have won me over, and the intensity of international soccer draws me away from the stop and start of baseball and football.

Besides I can’t stand all the constant advertisements that bombard you inside and outside the stadium. All the parks are owned by banks, and billboards dominate the venues, it used to be a simple church organ between innings and a generic wall. Now every outfield is sponsored by TBS or Staples, or Taco Bell.

In 2006 I fell in love with a certain soccer player who reminded me of a certain hockey player I had a man crush on.

Zinedine Zidane took the French national team as far as it could go without winning. Displaying the characteristics of something I’d recognized. Armed with deft passing skills, a steely glance, and a champion’s cool, I found myself wrapped up in the ‘06 World Cup, realizing that the intensity of the fan base was a major attraction to the sport.

No matter where I was, no matter the nationality of a person I came across while traveling, I found that soccer was an interesting starting point to engage a complete stranger (often foreign) in conversation.

That combined with countless hours of playing the FIFA video game with my roommates in Austin, got me to start tuning into UEFA Leagues and Champions Leagues and I’m a full fledged fan now, even if Zidane retired.

So it goes. Old relationships die, new ones start up, right?

I went to a Tulsa Drillers game tonight with teh kids and it was fun. I didn’t know a single player’s name, and didn’t care. I was just watching baseball. Didn’t care about stats or anything, just enjoying the fundamentals of executing a bunt, or a double steal, and witnessing the beauty of a 6-4-3 double play.

It was great. Tickets are cheaper at minor leauge games. Less frills between innings, better seats, less lines for cheaper concessions, and real fans.

The kids were ready to leave after six innings and I didn’t blame them, baseball is a slow and often boring game. Kind of like 1,000’s of people sitting down to watch a chess match (although I rather enjoy chess).

Its not for everyone and maybe not for me anymore, but I will always look back in fondness at certain players and moments I was lucky enough to witness.

I got to watch the two greatest World Series of my lifetime in 1991 (Twins-Braves Smoltz and Jack Morris 10 inning duel) and 2001 (Diamondbacks-Yankees 7 games extra inning affair as well).

I witnessed in person a perfect game thrown by Randy Johnson with a high school teammate in Atlanta in 2004.

I got to see Bo Jackson, George Brett, Matt Williams, Andre Dawson, David Cone, Nolan Ryan, Carlton Fisk, Roberto Alomar, Rickey Henderson and Dennis Eckersley play ball at one time or another.

I’ve been to Wrigley Field, Turner Field, Dodgers Stadium, Roylas Stadium, The Sky Dome, the Astrodome, Ballpark in Arlington. I’ve been on the field at Oakland Coliseum. I even took a plane to Pittsburgh to see the Pirates game. I was a huge fan of the sport.

I enjoyed just coming to the game and sitting for hours, watching and thinking, and talking ball.

And as much as I loved watching, I enjoyed playing even more. Just stepping across the chalk lines brought a smile to my face. I miss having teammates and having reasons to high five, and focusing on tendencies and stealing bases.

Had I known how much focus, and preparation went into being a good player, things may have been different for me. I wish I’d have known just how much of playing the game (and even living life) was mental.

I certainly regret not getting the most out of my ability. Its tough knowing that I wasn’t as good of a player as I could’ve been. I’m thirty years old now, and in what should be the peak of a player’s athletic conditioning and career.

I’d like to think I’d join another men’s league and play until I’m seventy like Bill “the Spaceman” Lee. And if not that then at least coach a bit. Who’s to say what will happen.

I can say that the only way you’ll catch me at a major league game is if someone I know is playing on a major league ballclub. Its refreshing to say that I have better things to do than to spend 30 dollars on a seat in a ballpark named after some corporation.

That’s too expensive of a nap. I’d rather just turn on the television and fall asleep on the couch.

Robby Hammock Crossing the Plate after his Grand Slam in the Bottom of the 6th against Charlotte

When I was playing baseball I hit somewhere around the Mendoza line.  I was never much of a hitter but I made up for my lack of hitting by being pretty solid defensively, a pretty versatile utility player and hustling on every play.  Likewise I would be the guy encouraging other players.   On two different teams in two different sports I was named the “Most Inspirational Player” by my teammates.  Being the most inspirational player does not mean that you are a particularly good ballplayer but rather that you add something else to the team dynamic.  In fact you may not be admired for how well you play, but rather how hard you try and how you get along with your team mates.  I was talking to my dad who is now in a nursing home with end stage Alzheimer’s disease on my last visit.  In a rare moment I had him back talking baseball I thanked him for how he helped me learn to love the game, pitch and field, especially fielding.  I said to him, the only thing that you didn’t do was teach me to hit.  He looked up at me and said “Son, there are a lot of people who can’t hit, it’s a gift.”  So I guess I was doomed to be a Mendoza Line player.

Mario Mendoza played for the Pirates and Mariners.  To be kind he was an amazing defensive shortstop but he as my dad would have said” Couldn’t hit his way out of a wet paper bag.”  His career average was .215 although he often flitted and flirted with the .180 – .200 level. He never played in an All Star game or World Series.  He never hit more than two home runs in a season, in fact one was an inside the park job playing for the Mariners and he hit below .200 in five of his nine major league seasons.   However, despite that Mario Mendoza lives on in baseball, his name forever associated with a low batting average.  In modern baseball parlance the Mendoza line is considered a batting average of .200.  Credit for who coined the term goes depending on your source to either George Brett, the All-Star Third Baseman of the Kansas City Royals or fellow Seattle Mariners Tom Paciorek or Bruce Bochte from whom Brett may have heard the term.  Either way the term stuck after ESPN commentator Chris Berman who used the term in 1988 to describe the hitting struggles of a star power hitter.  Once Berman made the comment it became a pretty standard way of denoting guys who struggle at the plate.  Mexican sportscaster Oscar Soria corroborates the Paciorek and Bochte version referencing a conversation with Mario Mendoza while Mendoza was managing the Obregon Yaquis in the Mexican Pacific League who stated that Mendoza said “that Tom Paciorek was the first to mention the phrase “Mendoza Line” when he read the Sunday paper” and that “then George Brett heard about that.”  Soria then discussed how Mendoza was initially angered by Berman’s use of the term but now “he enjoys the fame of the phrase Mendoza line.”  For a really good discussion of the Mendoza Line see the article in the Baseball Almanac at: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/books/mendozas_heroes_book.shtml, from which the information above is gleaned.

Now my buddy Elliott the Usher and I have frequent discussions about the game discussing pitching, hitting, fielding, base running, prospects, scouting and strategy.  Elloitt is one of those gems of Baseball knowledge, his love and knowledge of the game shows in the way he deals with people including Major League Scouts, players from the Tides and visiting team who are charting the game and others.  I really think that he should be hired as a commentator or color man on some baseball broadcast.  This season we have enjoyed a lot of laughs as well as had a lot great talks amid the joys and sorrows of the season.  One of our frequent subjects of discussion is players on our team as well as the visiting teams who are hitting near or below the Mendoza Line.  We have a few on the Tides who are hovering at or below the Mendoza line.  A couple of these players are former Major Leaguers and a couple career minor league guys.  Last night I decided to venture out for the first time in two days since I was now getting a case of “cabin fever” and my cocktail of Vicodin, Motrin and Amoxicillin seemed to have my pain and swelling a bit more under control.  Judy said my cheek still looks “like a squirrel’s” but at least I wasn’t in too bad of pain, though when I got up in the morning and until 2 or 3 PM I was still pretty sore and tired.  At least for the majority of the game the pain was manageable and of course as soon as I got home I dumped a butt load of meds down me and went to sleep.

Last night the Tides swept a double header from the Charlotte Knights who are the AAA affiliate of the Chicago White Sox.  Since the game was rain delayed after a series of severe storms raked the area in the two hours prior to the first pitch it was not well attended.  Because of this I was able to flit between my buddies Barry down in section 102 and Elliott.   It was good to be able in a fairly relaxed atmosphere to talk about the game.  The Tides had lost the last game prior to the All Star Break in Durham and then the first game back from the break.  In those two games their hitting died and they were outscored 16-3.  Last night Chris Tillman was throwing an outstanding game having given up just one run in the first inning.  It wasn’t until the 6^th inning until the Tides scored their first run with one out when Michael Aubry doubled to score Justin Turner to tie the game 1-1.  The Tides then loaded the bases and Brandon Pinkney struck out for the second out.  At this point with the bases loaded, Elliott and I gave a mutual groan.  One of our “below the Mendoza Line” batters, catcher Robby Hammock was coming to the plate.  Robby is a good defensive catcher and while playing for the Arizona Diamondbacks caught Randy Johnson’s perfect game in 2003.  However this year has seen Robby really struggle at the plate.  The count went to two and from the way Robby had been swinging the bat tonight Elliott turned to me and said “I can’t look.”  Robby then fouled off the next pitch.  I said “Elliott he’s dragging this out.” Then I yelled “Hey Mendoza! Get a hit!”   At this point Robby who is currently hitting .190 stood back into the batter’s box.  The pitch from Knight’s reliever John Link was a slider that didn’t cut and Robby planted it in the picnic area in Left Center for a Grand Slam home run.  Elliott and I rejoiced, Robby had maybe gotten the hit that would re-ignite the team for the second half of the season.  This blew the game open and the Tides went on to win 5-1.  Robby was quoted in the Virginia Pilot today about the hit “I closed my eyes and put my bat in the spot” and “I felt decent today, I just got lucky and that’s all there was to it.”  Tides fans are not complaining even if it was lucky, I’m happy for you Robby, you helped get us back on track enjoy the moment and keep hanging in there.

The hitting surge continued in the second game.  Jeff Fiorentino and Michael Aubrey, who are .300 hitters, Fiorentino about .325 right now and way above the Mendoza Line each had 2 hits and drove in two runs while our other way below the Mendoza Line players had a good night. Infielder Carlos Rojas was in at Third due to injuries that forced Manager Gary Allenson to reshuffle the line up.  Carlos is a pretty good defensive player with pretty good range.  However he was only hitting .156 going into the game but went 2-3 with two singles in what I think was his first multi-hit game of the season.  Catcher Chad Moeller who has struggled at the plate since coming down from Baltimore when Matt Wieters was called up also doubled and scored a run as the Tides took the second game 5-1 with Chris Waters getting the win.

All in all it was not a bad night for our guys living below the Mendoza line; hopefully they will all get themselves up above it.  As a member of the Mendoza Line club myself I hope that they all do well and that last night is a harbinger of things to come.  Today my mouth feels a bit better than yesterday though I woke up in some pain.  I plan on seeing tonight’s game with Judy as the Tides hopefully will extend their International League South Division lead over the Durham Bulls by defeating the Knights here again.

Coming back to the Mendoza Line itself the way that guys like Mendoza make their mark is by the intangibles that they bring to the game.  Some of the “Mendoza’s” went on in other ways to make a difference in the game through coaching, managing, scouting at the Major or Minor League level, as well as in sports media, announcing or writing.  Some would include guys like Tony LaRussa career .199 average in 10 seasons, Charlie Manuel .198 in 6 seasons, Bob Uecker career .200 in 6 Major League seasons, Sparky Anderson who hit .218 in one season in the Majors and once said “I led the league in “Go get ‘em next time.” Tommy Lasorda was a pitcher and had a 0-4 record and 6.48 ERA in three major league seasons as well as Earl Weaver who never made it to the Majors.  All made lasting marks on the game and all were way below the Mendoza line.

The application to baseball players and non-ball players alike when you find yourself at the Mendoza Line is to make the most out of what you have.  Play to your strengths and know that if you do this you will make a mark, even if it is not at the plate.  I figure as a somewhat well trained and experienced theologian, historian, military officer and Priest that the Deity Herself understands bad days, and lackluster careers and still helps us get through life.  So anyway, as a Mendoza Line alumnus I say to all those hovering around the line, find a way to make your mark and do well, I’m cheering for you as are all the other Mendoza’s among the Saints in Heaven.

Peace, Steve+

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Sports Jungle – George Brett tells story about crapping his pants. Video

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Former MLB All-Star and current MLB Network analyst Harold Reynolds recently wrote an article on his blog in which he argued that the OPS statistic was overrated.  He is obviously an old-school mind who has not embraced the statistical revolution.  One of his arguments is that great power hitters on bad teams, like Adrian Gonzalez, have an inflated OPS because pitchers do not pitch to them, meaning they walk a lot in addition to their home runs.  He is also claims that they have a higher OBP than the rest of their teammates because they clog the bases; not sure how that one makes any sense. 

Obviously, I disagree tremendously with his point of view.  OPS is an excellent tracker of player performance, and helps predict how many runs a player or team will score over the course of a season.  It is much more accurate than archaic stats like batting average, RBI, and even home runs.  Let me put it this way.  If you had to assemble a historical team but were only allowed to base your selections on one statistic, what would that stat be?  A lot of people would argue VORP, or win shares (which would be difficult due to the lack of historical fielding statistics), and these would be valid, but I think I would go with OPS+.  I know it does not take defence into consideration, but like I said, if you want to be using guys like Babe Ruth, there are not going to be any effective defensive stats to monitor them anyways.

I decided to make a team based on OPS+, and OPS+ alone, to prove how ridiculous Reynolds point is.  A player can only play the position he actually played that year.  This is what my starting line-up would look like, arranged according to batting order.  I bet you can figure out who each player is based on the information given.

They are of course Roger Hornsby, Ted Williams (technically a left fielder but I lumped corner infielders into one group), Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner, George Brett, and Johnny Bench.  As you can see, OPS is so overrated that my nine players include six first ballot Hall of Famers and the asterisked home run king.  I would hardly call a team that steals 124 bases a bunch of base-cloggers either.  The only player on the team that you could call a legitimate slowpoke on the basepaths is Ruth, and maybe Bench but he is a catcher.

If you were to use more traditional statistics like batting average and RBI, you would get a significantly different team.  I will not go through the list, but good players can fluke out and knock in 191 runs or hit .350.  It takes a lot more skill to have one of the best single season OPS.  To put that in perspective, three players (Bonds, Ruth and Williams) occupy the top eleven spots on this prestigious list, discounting the two guys from 19^th century who played a much different game.   

You may not find this article overly informative, but I find looking up historical stats a pleasure, so it was a lot of fun to write.  I also like to critique individuals like Reynolds who are stuck in their ways and refuse to embrace the changes that are happening around them. 

As an aside, I think we should all take a moment to appreciate Joe Mauer.  Going through the list of all-time OPS+ seasons, I had to go all the way down to 413^th to find the first catcher.  The next lowest position was Brett at 45^th.  It is incredibly difficult for catchers to put up the kind of numbers that Mauer does, and he could be the guy that you tell your grandkids about just as much as Pujols. 

I was watching Sportscenter this morning and another Pirates loss flashed across the screen.  The Pittsburgh Pirates have been one of the most pathetic franchises in sports over the last two decades.  Since Barry Bonds left in the early 90s, they have been a disaster to say the least.

Put the garbage bag over your head if you are…

NFL

Is this even a question?- The Detroit Lions have been awful for as long as I can remember.  A good year for them was getting knocked out in a wildcard playoff game back in 1999.  They were 8-8 that year and were very fortunate to sneak into the playoffs.  From 2001-2008 they have compiled a record of 31-97.  The Lions became the first team in NFL history to go 0-16, a feat that was accomplished last year.

NBA- LA Clippers-  Donald Sterling is a billionaire, but unfortunately none of that money goes toward his Clippers.  They play in the same arena as the Lakers, but are on the exact opposite end of the spectrum.  Future looks promising with Eric Gordon and soon to be drafted Blake Griffin.  Up to this point the team has been the laughing stock of the league since their inception in 1984.  In 25 years they have only made the playoffs two times since moving to LA in 1984.

NHL- New York Islanders-  Since their dynasty in the 1980s, Islander fans have been forced to become nostalgic to remember the glory days.  Besides the fact that Nassau Coliseum is a dump, the Islanders have rarely put together a winning team over the least 20 years.

MLB- Pick your poison, the Pittsburgh Pirates since Barry Bonds left or the Kansas City Royals since George Brett retired.

Mikeyrolls

Apparently this was from Spring Training a few years ago and is in fact real. After all, how could you make up a story like that? I meant to post it last weekend when the Royals were in town but it slipped my mind, so better late than never. In my opinion, Brett’s last line is his best: “Who are the pitchers in this game?”. Nice to see he’s able to switch gears so flawlessly.

Sports are always a great source for arguments.  Who could have beaten whom.  My guy was better than your guy.  Ditka vs. a hurricane.  And the debates rage on.  In the spirit of that, I thought I would throw out a list of my own.  I tried to come up with the five best hitters I’ve ever seen.  I intentionally avoided a few obvious names because of the steroids era.  The steroids mess has swept up almost an entire generation of players in scandal and speculation.  Until the dust settles, it’s going to be difficult to judge that group.  So, I simply ignored them.  Plus, longevity should count for something.  So here are the five best hitters I’ve ever seen:

1. Tony Gwynn – Over 3,100 hits, a lfietime .338 batting average (seventeenth best all-time), and eight batting titles.  Can you name any other Padres besides him?
2. Wade Boggs – Five batting titles and a .328 career average, plus over 1,400 walks.
3. George Brett – Three batting titles, a career average over .300, and he hit .390 in one season.  Plus, he has one of the all-time great explosions when he comes screaming out of the dugout after losing a homerun in a play-off game against the Yankees.
4. Rod Carew – seven batting titles, a career .328 average, and a season where he nearly hit .400 (.388 in 1977).
5. Paul Molitor – If Molitor could have stayed healthy, who knows how many hits he might have ended up with.  As it stands, he had over 3,300 hits and a lifetime average of .306.
6. Pete Rose – He’s the hit king of major league baseball.  I know that he gambled on the game and is banned, but his bookie slips didn’t swing the bat for him.
7. Don Mattingly – He’s Donnie Baseball for pete’s sake.  I know the numbers really don’t put him in the top, but I watched him in the minors and he had a few years where he was one of the best in the game.

One of the stranger things about baseball, especially when compared to other sports, is that an umpire can witness a breach of the rules, but doesn’t necessarily have to rule on the infringement.  In football, imagine if somebody lined up in the neutral zone and then proceeded to sack the quarterback, but no penalty was called unless the offense specifically appealed to the line judge for a ruling that the defender was offsides.  Well, that’s basically the situation that exists for certain aspects of the rules of baseball.

This is a remnant of the game’s origins.  Back in the 1850s, an umpire would not make a ruling on any play unless asked to do so by a player on one of the teams.  There were few exceptions to this (one being calling balls foul so that runners would know to go back to their respective bases).  As the game got more competitive, so many challenges were made that by the 1871 formation of the National Association, the onus had gradually shifted to the umpire to rule on most plays.

There were and are still vestigial exceptions, however.  As Peter Morris noted in A Game of Inches (Volume 1), a book I highly recommend (it is basically a compendium of historical baseball firsts), appeals were made for rulings on the legality of pitching deliveries “for many years afterward”.  There are still several appeal situations in the game for which an umpire is not required to rule unless asked, including a batter batting out of turn (almost always a lineup card mishap), a runner missing a base, a runner leaving too early while tagging up on a fly out, and check swings (a more recent development in the appeal world).

I want to write mainly about appeals involving baserunning snafus, but there were two lineup botch jobs in May within five days of each other, and each deserves mention.  The latter of these resulted in Houston’s Michael Bourn batting twice to lead off a game.  After singling, Milwaukee appealed that he had batted out of order (which he had, the Astros having submitted the wrong lineup card), so as a result Kaz Matsui (who should have been the leadoff hitter) was called out and Bourn then batted again as the #2 hitter, this time drawing a walk.

Earlier that same week Tampa Bay had submitted a lineup card in a game against Cleveland that featured two third basemen and no DH.  That situation was notable because it was later determined the umpires had erred on allowing Evan Longoria to remain eligible to play.

Of course, that type of thing happens occasionally.  Hall of Fame manager Dick Williams once submitted a lineup that required Nolan Ryan to face one batter (Gary Ross was supposed to have started the game, but Williams had absent-mindedly written Ryan’s name in the pitcher’s spot in the lineup instead):

Ryan was on the bench and in uniform. But he was wearing tennis shoes and no protective cup. Williams explained the problem.

“Thank goodness he understood,” Williams wrote in his autobiography. “He went out there and stiffly faced one batter, who grounded out to shortstop, at which point I immediately yanked him from the game.”

Imagine if there had been a comebacker…

—

On May 18, Ryan Church of the Mets was called out on appeal for missing third base during a game against the Dodgers.  It was a key play in the contest, as Church would have otherwise scored the go-ahead run in the 11th inning.  Instead, the game remained tied, and Los Angeles would score in the bottom half of that same inning, winning the game 3-2.  Church’s baserunning gaffe generated considerable discussion in several quarters, including a SABR listserv to which I subscribe.  This is what happened:

In the top of the 11th, Church singled with two outs, his second hit since entering in the eighth as a defensive replacement in rightfield. [Angel] Pagan followed with a long drive into the right-center gap, a shot that apparently allowed Church to score easily. But Church stepped in front of third base and over it – an obvious miss.

Church later said he felt like he brushed the edge of the base with his foot. “I thought I touched it,” he said. “That’s why I kept going. If I had any doubt, I would have stopped.”

Third baseman [Mark] Loretta yelled for the baseball – Dodgers manager Joe Torre noticed Church’s mistake, too – and with Pagan standing on third, got the appeal in his favor. Inning over, score still tied at 2.

Church may have felt he had touched the bag, but according to one SABR member at the game, it was obvious even from a vantage point high in the stands that Church had missed third base.  It was so obvious, in fact, that there wasn’t an appeal play — Loretta called for the ball immediately, with the putout recorded as 8-6-2-5.

What if there had been an appeal situation, though?  What if time had been called after the ball was thrown to the catcher?  Then the pitcher would have had to have initiated an appeal by throwing to third base, with Pagan at the bag following his would-be triple.

Apparently Phil Mushnick thought there was an appeal play when he blasted Mike Francesa for “big-timing” a caller on Francesa’s radio show who wanted to discuss the play.  That wasn’t the case, although that doesn’t really let Francesa off the hook (he thought the ball was dead, too).  Since this isn’t WFAN, though, and hypotheticals can occasionally be fun, we can discuss what the caller (who identified himself as a high school baseball coach) tried to say:

…in such rare situations — when there’s a call for an appeal play at third with a runner already there, as there was Monday in L.A. — he would instruct the player on third (Pagan) to run toward home the moment the pitcher starts the “live ball” appeal by touching the rubber and beginning his throw to third….the team in the field (Dodgers) must make a split-second move: Follow through on the appeal at third — in Monday’s case risk Church being called safe, thus the Mets would have a two-run lead (Church scoring, followed by Pagan) — or throw home to tag the runner (Pagan), thus no appeal at third could be made and the Mets would be conceded that one, go-ahead run (Church).

…The only way the Mets could not enter the bottom of the 11th with a lead was if the Dodgers stayed focused enough to carry out the appeal and Church was ruled to have missed third.

That would have been rather clever.  One of the key things about an appeal play is that it technically isn’t a “play”.  If it were, you wouldn’t be able to make consecutive appeals, because once the ball is “live” you can’t make an appeal after initiating a play.  So in the example given above, if the Dodgers had thrown home to put out Pagan, that would have been a play, and they would have lost the right to appeal Church missing the bag.

Other notable (or amusing) appeal situations:

From the amusing department, we have Melvin Mora, baserunning savant.  Retrosheet describes the bottom of the 5th of an April 2001 game between the Orioles and Red Sox as follows:

ORIOLES 5TH: Ripken grounded out (second to first); Mora was hit
by a pitch; Fordyce lined to third [Mora out at second (pitcher
to second)]; 0 R, 0 H, 0 E, 0 LOB.  Red Sox 1, Orioles 0.

Well, I guess that mention of Mora out at second base by the pitcher to the second baseman should tell you something.  Baseball Digest has the story:

Mora [was] on first base with one out when Brook Fordyce hit a line drive to Boston third baseman Shea Hillenbrand. The Red Sox rookie threw errantly to first to double up Mora and the ball went into dead territory.

Umpire Brian Gorman instructed Mora to go to third base, reminding him that a runner gets two bases on an overthrow that goes into dead territory. Apparently, Mora took Gorman literally and went directly to third without touching second base…

…The moment Mora touched third, he could not return to touch second base since the ball was dead. Orioles’ third base coach Tom Trebelhorn asked the third base umpire about the possibility of Mora returning to second before the Red Sox appealed the missed base. The ump nixed the idea immediately.

Before the next pitch, Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez threw to second to appeal Mora’s missed base. The appeal was upheld and the putout was recorded 1-4.

Oof.  That reminds me a little of the 1976 Little League World Series title game, when a Japanese runner on second base was so excited about scoring a run following a base hit that he ran straight home from second, without bothering to run to third base.  The opposing team (from California) appealed to third base for the putout.  Japan won anyway, 10-3.  I guess you can’t compare a major leaguer’s mistake to that of a Little Leaguer, although I suppose they may have been about the same age…

Also in the funny (and more well-known) department would be Marv Throneberry’s baserunning gaffe in this game, where he was ruled out for failing to touch second base on a triple.  According to legend, after the successful appeal manager Casey Stengel went out to argue, but was intercepted by his own first base coach, Cookie Lavagetto.  The coach told him not to bother, because Throneberry had also missed first base.  I don’t know if that story is really true (I’ve also read a version in which Stengel is met by the first base umpire instead of Lavagetto), but it’s part of the lore of the 1962 Mets, and whether or not it’s factual probably doesn’t matter much.  At least Throneberry got a Miller Lite commercial out of his reputation.

In terms of playoff appeals, one of the more famous, if not the most famous, happened in Game 5 of the 1991 NLCS, when Atlanta’s David Justice was ruled to have missed third base while scoring what would have been the go-ahead run in that game, a contest eventually won by the Pittsburgh 1-0.

Justice claimed that he had actually touched the bag, and I think he probably did, but he stumbled over it, and it was such an awkward move that it’s not surprising Jay Bell asked for an appeal.  Frank Pulli then called Justice out.  It would have been a much bigger deal, of course, if the Braves had not rallied to win the series.

In the linked article, Dave Anderson compares Justice’s blunder to the famous “Merkle’s Boner” play, which is understandable, although the play involving Merkle wasn’t actually an appeal.  Johnny Evers retrieved the ball (or some ball; whether it was the actual ball used in the play is debatable) and stepped on second base, and got the out call from umpire Hank O’Day.  That play was still considered “live”, even with all the fans overrunning the field.

Of course, that Cubs-Giants game from 1908 was an end-game situation, and making a standard appeal in that scenario may not be possible.  It’s not unlike what happened in a memorable 22-inning affair at Montreal in 1989 between the Dodgers and Expos.

Los Angeles would eventually win the game 1-0 on a home run by Rick Dempsey (off El Presidente, Dennis Martinez), but Montreal thought it had won the game in the bottom of the 16th inning, when Larry Walker appeared to have scored the winning run on a sacrifice fly.  The Dodgers appealed that Walker had left third base early, though, and he was ruled out by third base umpire “Balking” Bob Davidson.

According to one observer who was at the game, Davidson did not immediately leave his position after the play (and presumably the game) had ended, which may have suggested to the Dodgers that an appeal play might prove successful.  I think that illustrates an inherent problem with the “see evil, don’t say evil unless asked” aspect of appeal plays, to be honest.

Tangent:  that game was also notable because Expos mascot Youppi! was ejected from the game in the 11th inning, which is believed to have been the first time a mascot was ejected from a major league game by an umpire.  Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda had complained after being disturbed by some Youppi! antics on L.A.’s dugout roof.  Youppi! did reappear later in the game, however, although he (it?) was restricted to Montreal’s dugout roof.

One more appeal story, a side note to one of baseball’s more famous (or infamous) regular season games, the George Brett “pine tar” game.  After AL president Lee McPhail had overruled the umpires’ decision, and that Brett’s home run stood, the Yankees and Royals resumed the game — 25 days later.  Billy Martin had one more argument to make, and it would have been a good one, but somebody in the league office had been thinking along with the Yankee skipper:

Before the first pitch to Hal McRae (who followed Brett in the lineup), Martin challenged Brett’s home run on the grounds that Brett had not touched all the bases, and maintained that there was no way for the umpires (a different crew than the one who worked July 24) to dispute this. But umpire Davey Phillips was ready for Martin, producing an affidavit signed by the July 24 umpires stating that Brett had indeed touched all the bases. An irate Martin continued to argue with the umpires and was ejected from the game.

I think that’s a good way to end this post — with an appeal that was rejected.

The FaFU is the best link “dump” that you’ve never seen before.  It’s a mix of sports, pop culture and complete and utter nonsense all mixed up like bad seafood in your stomach, and then BOOM! exploded out like diarrhea running down your leg… Please excuse our self-defecating humor.

10) Fatties - You are a nuisance to society. You make America look bad, and you are very responsible for the rising cost of health care because of your fucking heart attacks, diabetes, and Rascal’s because you are too lazy to walk around fucking Kroger. They shouldn’t give you handicapped parking spots, they should give you fat person parking spots, 2 blocks away so you can burn some calories. Now you have to go and try to get fatter with websites like this one and this one?

9) Tony Horton – I fucking hate you! I fucking hate you so much! You are a complete tool. I guess I should expect this from the guy who developed a workout program that sells on an infomercial. I can only complete your P90X workouts knowing that you will not make any money off of me because I am mooching off someone, who is mooching off someone who is dumb enough to buy this system. And also so I don’t become someone from #10.  So every time you make comments like “Tip of the day: don’t smash your face, let someone else do that for you” or “What’s wow upside down? MOM!” or you nickname someone “Pam the Blam” you have a punch in the face coming.

This link banned in Kansas - Everyone, say hello to your great great great (probably great to the 1000th power) grandmother, whose fossilized remains have been newly discovered

7) Whores – Everyone loves them! Even people who are “disgusted” by them are secretly jealous and entertained by them at the same time. That’s why they get their own shows like “Rock of Love,” Real Housewives of [City]“, “Girls Next Door”,  “The View” and they get to be on the radio too. Well now, all your favorite playmates are officially whores too! In an unrelated story, can anyone loan me $3,000?

6)Seth MacFarlane - Damn you and your comedic cartoon genius! I will for sure be picking up Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy on DVD. BTW, do you think this is an aggie’s dream? (Vid has some nasty awesome language, probably NSFW, and by probably I mean definately)

5) LeBron Fucking James - Who do you think you are? You think you are sooooo good at basketball because you can make shots like these and these? Please son, step off. If I weren’t 5′10″, white, fat, and lazy I could do that too.

4) Rachel Alexandria - Apparently pictures have surfaced that may lead to her crown being revoked. (Another link that may turn on some Aggies)

3) Billy Mays -PIPEZ HERE! You know there is nothing more American than the Infomercial, and Billy Mays was always the #1 infomercial salesman in our hearts, and therefore the best American. We may have had a fling with Vince before he punched a whore in the face (also American!), but Billy reminded us he’s our favorite with his three ESPN commercials. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE! Since you are a patriot and you love Billy Mays as much as we do here is some bonus Billy Mays material for you to celebrate July 4th early with!

2) George Brett - Was in the news this week for dropping some F-bombs on the local news… Whatever. The real story here is that George Brett doesn’t give a “shit” when he is miked up. This may be old news, but when have poop jokes ever gotten old? George Brett’s Browns fall short of the Super Bowl

1) MLIA - First we brought you Fmylife.com, then it was Textsfromlastnight.com, but what if you don’t have some crazy story about how your life sucks? What if you don’t go out with your friends and a get shit faced and send stupid texts to each other at 2:30 AM, as you all leave the bars? Well then, here’s the site for you! MLIA (if you have never ventured to any of those sites before, consider your day officially ruined… No more work for you)